Bear No.56, the world's oldest known wild black bear dies of old age after dodging hunters for 39.5 years in Minnesota

The world's oldest bear in the wild has died of old age in northern Minnesota at the age of 39 and-a-half according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

Given the tag, Bear No. 56, the female black bear was first encountered by the DNR in 1981 at the age of seven and given a radio collar for monitoring by scientists keen to keep a tab on the state's population of bears.

Bear No.56 produced 23 cubs over a period of 32 years she was studied and outlived by almost 20 years the other 360 radio-collared bears that DNR researchers followed and was almost six years older than the second oldest bear known to science.

DNR
bear researchers with Bear No. 56 after its last handling in March
2010. Pictured left to right are Karen Noyce, DNR bear research
biologist; Ken Soring, current DNR enforcement division director, who
assisted Noyce with the bear's initial capture in July 1981; and Dave
Garshelis, DNR bear research biologist

The bears longevity was attributed to the remoteness of her habitat, which is away from people and major roads and the fact that DNR researchers said that she was quite reserved and shy.

Indeed, such was her fame, that by the end of her life, hunters in Minnesota would not shoot her after a request was put out by the DNR to look for her distinctive radio collar.

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When she was last sedated and examined in March 2010, Bear No. 56 was healthy but her teeth had extensive decay and her eyes showed signs of cloudiness.

It was in July that researchers noticed that she her radio signal had veered off course many miles from her typical home patch and they dispatched, Karen Noyce, a DNR to investigate.

First Time of Meeting: Bear No. 56 recovers from a tranquilzing drug after its first capture and collaring in July 1981

Noyce found Bear No.56's decomposing body in a secluded location and initial findings revealed that she had a quiet death and there was no sign of struggle or broken bones.

'This is the first bear in our study to die of old age, and there is something satisfying in that,' said Noyce, who, along with Ken Soring, DNR’s current enforcement director, first met Bear No.56 all the way back in 1981.

Old Lady: Bear No. 56 in 1998 photographed just after she had woken up from sedation in the wild of northern Minnesota

'It would have been sad to find her on the side of the road somewhere, hit by a car. After following her all these years, I’m glad to know she died peacefully. It was a fitting death for a fine old bear.'

'She was just lying
in a wooded spot, next to a little bit of a low area, a shady area. It
was a kind of place a bear would lay down and take a midday nap.'